OCCLUSION or restricted blood flow training

[John A. Casler]

This is moved from another thread which I didn't want to get sidetracked.

carruthersjam said:

admin said:

Also do not forget to add in the tight T-shirt and "elbow warmers" on the presses/dips/benches/elbow extension actions for protection. Even Ronnie Coleman uses them.

I have found that compression garments / wraps also help to increase one's awareness of tension changes in muscle complex and also enhance the "mind-muscle" connection.

Yes, you gotta love that "feel".

Maybe it is just me, but it makes me feel BIG and Powerful!!

And the compression/restriction actually does add a few pounds to your lifts (Just squat in a tight pair of jeans sometime and see your squat jump 25# or more)

And the compression, especially when you are pumped makes you feel HUGE.

It led me to formulate a few ideas about OCCLUSION "restricted blood flow" training and how restricting the blood flow "OUT" of a body area might trick the body into thinking it had been worked harder, and what might result if the body part was:

1) pumped longer
2) Subjected to metabolites longer
3) trained under blood flow restrictions

Have not had a chance to test this out, but it seems to make a bit of sense. Probably not for Strength Gains, but possibly for support tissues in Hyper trophic Gains.

[John A. Casler]

THIS POST IS ACTUALLY FROM JAMIE CARRUTHERS AND MOVED AND REPOSTED HERE

admin said:

carruthersjam said:

I have found that compression garments / wraps also help to increase one's awareness of tension changes in muscle complex and also enhance the "mind-muscle" connection.

Yes, you gotta love that "feel".

Maybe it is just me, but it makes me feel BIG and Powerful!!

And the compression/restriction actually does add a few pounds to your lifts (Just squat in a tight pair of jeans sometime and see your squat jump 25# or more)

And the compression, especially when you are pumped makes you feel HUGE.

It led me to formulate a few ideas about OCCLUSION "restricted blood flow" training and how restricting the blood flow "OUT" of a body area might trick the body into thinking it had been worked harder, and what might result if the body part was:

1) pumped longer
2) Subjected to metabolites longer
3) trained under blood flow restrictions

Have not had a chance to test this out, but it seems to make a bit of sense. Probably not for Strength Gains, but possibly for support tissues in Hyper trophic Gains.

I have long been interested in this area and I have tried to get hold of the Kaatsu resistance training device. The below information may be of interest:

Does blood flow restriction enhance hypertrophic signaling in skeletal muscle?
Ronald A. Meyer

jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/100/5/1443
<<<In fact, it is well established from animal models that flow restriction amplifies angiogenesis in response to moderate aerobic exercise.

From the applied point of view, it is not clear that low-intensity resistance training with restricted flow has any advantage for healthy subjects over more conventional training with higher loads. Exercise of ischemic muscle can be uncomfortable, and certainly it would be difficult to apply the method to training trunk or neck muscles! Nonetheless, the method is apparently quite popular in Japan, where it is known as "Kaatsu," and advocates of the method argue that it would be clinically useful in subjects for whom high-load exercise is not indicated, for example, in the frail elderly or during rehabilitation after cast immobilization (16). In any case, from the molecular point of view, the phenomenon deserves further investigation, because it may provide insight into the initial signaling events that trigger muscle growth. Specifically, the enhanced response to ischemic training suggests that intracellular metabolic changes may be an important signal for hypertrophy.

There is no doubt that resistance training with restricted flow would amplify high-energy phosphate depletion and lactic acid production compared with training at the same load with normal flow. In fact, insofar as there is a good correlation between high-energy phosphate depletion and acid production vs. load during resistance exercises (20), the recommendation that hypertrophy requires a load >70% of one repetition maximum might just as well be recast as a recommendation that the training must result in substantial anaerobic metabolism. The observation that resistance training with shorter rest periods between sets results in greater hypertrophy than the same training program with long rest periods (but the same total mechanical work) is consistent with this view (13). The mechanism by which acute changes in high-energy phosphates or other linked metabolites might trigger the hypertrophic signaling cascade is unknown. However, there is ample evidence that metabolic sensors such as AMP-dependent protein kinase can play important regulatory roles in skeletal muscle (5). Thus it seems just as reasonable to hypothesize an unidentified metabolic sensor as a mechanical sensor (7).

Of course, there are other possible explanations for the hypertrophic response to exercise with flow restriction besides a hypothesized metabolic sensor. For example, insofar as the smaller, more aerobic motor units normally recruited at light loads would be expected to fatigue more rapidly during flow restriction, it is likely that exercise with flow restriction requires recruitment of the larger, fast motor units, which are normally only recruited during stronger efforts. In fact, greater integrated electromyograph amplitudes were recorded during exercise with flow restriction compared with the same exercise without restriction (17, 19). Thus it may be that the enhanced hypertrophic response to exercise with flow restriction simply results from enhanced mechanical load on the muscle fibers in large motor units. This hypothesis would be easy to test by examining the effect of flow restriction on hypertrophy after resistance training by electrical stimulation of muscle, either in humans or in an animal model of resistance exercise (3). If flow restriction enhances the hypertrophic response to training independent of changes in recruitment, then the phenomenon deserves serious consideration from those interested in the molecular biology of hypertrophy. >>>

[John A. Casler]

Hi Jamie,

I fashioned my own devices out of elastic bands, but they can only effectively be used on the extremeties.

I found bands that were the right size to comfortably restrict flow, and simply used multiple bands to acheive the desired strength occlusion.

I hadn't seen the KAATSU site. I though I might have had an original idea, but I guess not.

Little concerned about publically disclosing it since it seems a little hairbrained

But I guess not. if they are doing research on it in Michigan.

[carruthersjam]

In the 1960s, Hettinger & Muller researched this concept by tying a tourniquet above the area to be exercised. This type of training did not produce significantly greater increases in strength (Hettinger "Physiology of Strength" 1961). However, Zatsiorsky (late 1960s) found that a pseudo-isometric type action was particularly effective in increasing muscle mass:

""Another method is "cramping", which is done at the end of the above regime. The performer lifts weight greater than he can lift for the full range of motion. It is lifted to such an extent so that at
least some movement is possible for a short time in order that it can bring out the "sick" appearance as seen in conditions of static
circulation. At times, this causes tissue stretching.... In this method there is shortening and loss of elasticity in the muscles; therefore, one should always execute some dynamic movements over a full range of motion after this type of activity.""

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Regarding the history of Kaatsu training - extracts have been provided:

Numbness Induced by Sitting Straight

kaatsu.jp/pdf/0101/01Sato.pdf

I started my own form of resistance training during my first year of junior high school after seeing a body builder on TV for the first time. In the fall of 1966, which was my last year at high school, I received the inspiration for KAATSU Training while attending a Buddhist memorial. During the mass my leg became numb as a result of the position I was sitting in (straight back while kneeling on the floor). I started massaging my calf and noticed that the swelling and discomfort in my calf area was similar to the sensation I experienced after performing strenuous calf-raise exercises. I attributed this swelling sensation to decreased blood flow and theorized that this muscle swelling and altered sensation may be caused by, or associated with reduced blood flow to the muscle (Sato, 2004a).
Repeated experimentation was required to determine the optimal position of where to apply
pressure in order to reduce blood flow to an active muscle. When too much pressure is applied, the skin may turn pale, and if exercise is continued while too much pressure is being applied, thrombosis may occur. It is quite difficult to reduce blood flow by the appropriate amount in order to achieve beneficial effects. It is important to remember that this technique should not be tried without thorough knowledge of how to correctly apply the KAATSU Training protocol because too much pressure may be deleterious. Six months of experimentation was required before I was able to achieve a significant “pump up” effect with KAATSU Training.